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NY Times Disses Halo 3?

Okay, not really.

Jurie, over at Intelligent Artifice linked off this op-ed piece from the NY Times last week that I only got around to reading yesterday. I was honestly surprised at how insightful the article is. Normally games coverage in the mass media is dull and lifeless at best, or part of a blind witchhunt at worst, but this article really cuts to the core of important standing challenges in game development that people in the game industry are working hard to solve (even the guys at Bungie, whether Daniel Radosh knows it or not).

Radosh lines 'em up and knockes 'em down: Halo 3 is the Pong of of 2007. Cinematics undermine feelings of agency. Games are 'backward looking', and we game designers have still failed to fully formalize the language of our medium. "Transformers" is not art, Bioshock's reach exceeds it's grasp....

While any one of these statements is worthy of thousands of hours of debate, what's important here is that these ideas are starting to creep out of the pages of game design blogs, out of the post-lecture corridors of GDC, and into the popular press. There's not much in Radosh's article that I haven't said myself (and I'm not typically being original when I say this stuff) - but my 100 hits a day is insignificant compared to the Times. More people probably read that article on the day it ran than will ever read this one in the entire time it sits here.

You should read it to. 

Virtual Minefields

This amusing story of how Minesweeper was updated for Vista floated across my desk the other day. The post is a year old now, but worth a read. With all the effort we expend trying to expand our audience beyond the rather easy-to-please domain of teenage boys and young men, I wonder how much we consider what would happen if our games we played by hundreds of millions instead of millions.

Minesweeper has that level of reach, and unfortunately for MS, among their hundreds of millions of players, are many who have to deal with landmines in their everyday lives. Sure seems to make things complicated and messy.

The Olsen Saga - Epilogue

So four months after poor Olsen kicked the bucket, and six weeks since Mark and Syed got things moving and shipped me a replacement 360, Microsoft finally has to bite the bullet.

They're extending the warranty on the 360 to three full years, and given it's only been just over a year and a half since the 360 shipped, that means every single 360 in the world is covered again. Of course, the coverage is retroactive, so I should be getting $168.00 back from MS for the repair bill on poor old Olsen. That's like 200 beer or so, so lounging around playing games just got a lot more fun.

Of course, it's costing MS a billion frikkin' dollars, which ain't no joke. I wonder what the design and development budget for a new console is? I'm guessing - completely out of the blue - that it's probably in the neighborhood of that much. So maybe the X360 is going to be a ten-year console after all...

The Olsen Saga - Part VI - Done

Olsen arrived this morning just as I was about to leave for work. I didn't have a chance to post about it today, and it took me a few hours to get it up and running again.

No explanation, really, but they just sent me a completely new box. Maybe my old one was permanently toasted or maybe Syed couldn't get information fast enough and just went down to his local Futureshop and bought one and had it couriered to me. Who knows.

At any rate, because it needed to re-detect my PC, and because there have been upgrades to Windows Connect and to Windows Media Player (I play all my music by streaming it over my wireless network from my PC to my X360) I needed to get the latest version of Media Player and jump through a bunch of annoying hoops in order to get it all up and running again, but now it's up, and Cmdr Greedo is back online.

For you suckers who thought you were going to catch up on me, I went and quickly nabbed 15 Achievements playing Frogger... just to make sure I could log a few points to get back on the charts.

Anyone who just took advantage of my little lull to edge past me better watch their ass. I got SC:DA and Vegas still in the plastic, I'm about one third of the way into Gears, Project 8 is screaming my name, and I have Viva Pinata waiting to go. Spideman 3 comes out tomorrow, and Guitar Hero is only one shopping trip away.

Prediction: 1200 Achievement point gain for the month of May.

On the whole, while the delay and the complete info blackout was unacceptable, once the matter was raised the problem was solved within 48 hours.

Thanks to Jessie, Michelle, Dave, Mark, Syed and Max the bot who made what could have been an even more frustrating experience bearable by being polite, courteous, cheerful and always genuinely concerned. Maybe Microsoft learned something about the value of keeping their employees motivated and invested in their job from working with game developers.

I wonder how this whole mess would have turned out if I had not told them who I was once things turned bad. I hope that a simple expression of serious unhappiness at the situation if they mishandle it would get anyone the same treatment. I hope so. I sure as shit hope that someone who has my game sitting in the plastic on their shelf doesn't have to wait to play it.

In the end, I will say I am fairly satisfied with the process because the service I recieved from the people at the call center outweighed the frustration and hassle of the delay.

The Olsen Saga - Part V - Syed Says

As Mark, the Service Center Supervisor who I spoke to last night promised me, I received a call at 13:22 this afternoon from Syed.

I guess Syed is Winston Wolf of the Service Center. After reconfirming all the details of the issue, Syed told me he would get to the bottom of it and find out what was going on with poor Olsen. He gave me his direct line number and a new reference number and told me I would not have to deal with anyone but him until I had my X360 plugged in and working again.

He then told me that it was going to take him a few hours to figure out what had happened, and apologized that it would possibly take a week and a half to get the entire issue resolved. He then reassured me by saying that "the one thing I can promise you is that I am on top of it and it will not get any worse from here on."

Fuckin' A Syed, show 'em who's boss.

He told me he was off to find out everything he could and that he would get back to me in a couple hours and in no case later than end of day.

Once again, nothing but positive feedback for the attitude and professionalism of every single person I have dealt with in this entire process: Jessie, Michelle, Dave, Mark, and Syed (and Max, well, he's okay, but he's no Olsen).

I do some work.

At 16:40 I pop online to check my webmail and lo and behold I have an automated message from the Service Center. The body text reads:

Dear Customer,
We have received your Xbox at our service center. It is our priority to process your Xbox in a timely manner and to get it back to you as good as new.  We will contact you as soon as we are finished so you can get ready to get back into the game!

Thanks,
Xbox Customer Care

Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

There is some kind of code number in the Subject Line. Having no idea whether this is being sent to me because of some action Syed has taken, or because someone found my X360 sitting in a corner and logged it into the system or what, I decide to call Syed and give him the code number in the subject line in case that will help him expedite things. I get his voice mail and leave the code number for him.

I do some more work.

At 17:53 my phone rings. It's Syed. He tells me Olsen is fixed and that he just handed it off to Purlotor and I should have it in 2-5 days. I have a new Purolator Tracking Number.

Syed tells me that he will call me back once I have recieved it - meaning he has configured the Purlotaor site to email him notifications, so he's keeping up on his promise to make sure I am actually playing it before he is done. Sweet.

As of this post it has cleared the sorting center in Toronto.

2007/05/02 21:04 Left TORONTO SORT CTR/CTR TRIE, ON   
2007/05/02 17:46 Shipment In Transit   
2007/05/02 17:04 Received at Shipping from SHIPPER of TELEPLAN 101 COURTLAND AVE CONCORD ON

Syed is the man. I better get that dudes Gamertag, because I sure wanna have him on my fucking team next time I'm playing GRAW.

I'll (hopefully) be able to post the conclusion to the Olsen Saga as early as tomorrow, or Friday.

The Olsen Saga - Part IV - I Wish There Was No Part IV

I wish there was no Part IV to this saga, or at very least, I wish Part IV was the conclusion, but it's not.

So I called 1-800-4 MY XBOX today to inquire about my X360 repair status. I can't post the Purolator Tracking Number here because it might violate some kind of agreement, but the last update on their site is

2007/04/13 11:58
Delivered to PUTMAN
at RECEPTION of
TELEPLAN 101
COURTLAND L4K5N5 

This means that Purolator has proof of receipt at noon on the 13th. That was 18 days ago. If we subtract out the 6 days of weekend in there, we're still at 12 days. It was supposed to be fixed and shipped back within 6-8 days according to Michelle who I spoke to on the 8th. There is no realistic circumstance under which I should not have Olsen in my living room right now... so what's going on?

I dealt with the voice-recognizing customer service bot 'Max' (who is much less charming than another Max I know), who passed me on to Customer Service Rep Dave. Dave was pleasant and in a good mood - though I could hear a LOT of chatter in the background, and got multiple warnings of higher than normal call volume. Sounds like they are busy - probably with the Elite launch. Regardless, I have nothing but positive things to say about the attitude and general helpfulness of the people who I have spoken to so far.

Dave verified my ID and then immediately looked up the status using the same Purolator Tracking Number I have, and upon verifying that it had been recieved on the 13th, immediately (but politely) put me on hold.

Five minutes passed.

Dave came back on line with Mark - the Service Center Supervisor - on the line. Dave kindly explained that he was going to turn me over to Mark's care and that Mark would help me now. This is when I knew things were going wrong.

Mark reverified my ID, and then told me that he was very sorry for the delays, and then went on to explain that they would "get someone to look into it and call me back within 1 working week."

Hmmm. What happened to 6-8 days from the 13th? One working week from today is already one full month from the date that I first contacted them and spoke to Jessie, which was more than 3 weeks since the box actually failed (Olsen records my last day playing was the 12th of March).

First I asked Mark what was the problem, as no one had actually explained what was so catastrophically wrong that the repair would be delayed by ~100%. He told me that they had changed the location of their Canadian Service Center and were having 'problems' sorting out the new address. That seems kind of odd when you consider that my box has been recieved... it's not like it got shipped to the wrong place, because that's what is implied. Anyway, that's the reason, and so be it. But an extra week just to wait for them to get back to me? That doesn't even make sense.

So now I'm a bit unhappy, and now the horror stories that I have heard before which I assumed to be the exception and not the rule are spinning in my head.

So I complained. I know it's lame, but I told Mark who I was and what games I had worked on and I explained to him that as a guy who makes games for his console and who provides content for a few million of his customers, well, it's important to me to know that our shared customers are getting good service. I love my 360 and I love the games I play on it, and I have always appreciated working with Microsoft... but I know I am a developer... what is it like for real people? Does every guy like me who happens to work at a tuna factory instead of a game dev shop have to wait an extra week because they lost his XBox? I hope not. That's a week when he could be playing my game instead of playing some other game, or going to see 300 or something. It's a competition for hearts and minds and I don't wanna lose by not showing up for the battle.

So Mark tells me that because I complained, he is going to 'elevate' my issue and that he will have someone from the RSS (Repair Replacement Specialist) Team contact me tomorrow between 1pm and 3pm my time to give me a new update on the issue. I made it clear to Mark that I did not want special treatment - nor to butt in line... I explained that I was simply dissatisfied with the service, but he insisted, and so I will expect the call tomorrow.

Anyway, I'd be happier to not have to deal with this. I'd rather finish Gears, or get into Project 8, or pop in Double Agent or Vegas (both still in the plastic) or give Viva Pinata a whack (thanks Kim), but instead of a good time as Cmdr Greedo, I have responsibility.

Shit... didn't I just finish talking about that?

I Feel Your Pain, Dude

David Jaffe blogged about the review Gamespot gave his newly released PS3 downloadable game Calling All Cars.

I have to say that I know exactly how he feels because there was a pretty common consensus that Gamespot always lowballed the scores for Splinter Cell titles. Kasavin gave the original Splinter Cell an 8.6 when the average was a 9.2 and he then gave Chaos Theory another 8.6 when it averaged a 9.4. It was even more painful because those lower scores came in the first week after launch, and usually the overall scores right after launch are higher (I have since observed that an average game score falls approximately 0.5 on 10 from the average of the first 5-6 scores to the final average on Gamerankings a year after launch).

So dude, I feel for you. It hurts to get lowballed like that especially as your 3rd or 4th review. What hurts even more in the end is that even though the average overall will come down by half a point or so, this review is so much lower than the average that it could possibly still be at the very bottom of the list.

In the end, though, and in all fairness, I had to concede that both of the Splinter reviews were pretty honest. Furthermore since it seems to me that there are just too many games getting 8.5 or higher - I have to say that maybe Gamespot reviews are actually really accurate. Obviously sometimes a bias seems to creep in from nowhere, but that's what gamerankings is for.

If I said I would only play games rated 9.0 or higher, I still would not have time to play those games... and why don't more games get a 1 or a 2 or a 3... god knows there are a boatload of those and many of them still get a 5/10. All that does is crowd up the middle with shit games and make it impossible to give a mediocre boring uninspired game a 5 and instead it gets a 7 and people waste their time wondering of they should play it or not.

The solution - well, we need more game criticism to counterbalance the overabundance of game reviews. The reality is most reviews are just spouting off the same old crap that is being repeated on 100 other sites anyway. If some of these sites would switch over to providing in depth analytical criticism instead of reviews, guys like us wouldn't need to get our hair in a knot over a review at all.

The Olsen Saga - Part III - Jimmy Kidnapped?!?

Uh-oh. Hate to say it, but things aren't running completely smoothly here.

My Purolator Tracking Number indicates that Olsen was received at the Service Center in Courtland, Ontario at 11:58am on Friday, April 13th. But a check this morning indicates that it has not yet left the Service Center.

The talented Michelle, with whom I spoke on the Customer Service Line on the morning of April 8th assured me that Olsen would be returned to me within 6-8 days of receipt at the Service Center. Even if we don't count the day they received it, and even if we didn't count the day they ship it back (that's giving them 2 days for free), then at the very latest they should have shipped it out by the 26th. But they did not.

I spent last week in Paris for some work stuff, and had really hoped it would be here when I got back so I could rock-the-fuck-out with Guitar Hero II, but alas, I will have to wait through the weekend and very probably 2-3 days more. At best I assume I can expect it in the middle of next week.

Even more discouraging than these delays is the fact that the new X360 (the black one) hits the shelves tomorrow and I could have just said goodbye to poor Olsen and grabbed a new one instead. Oh well.

If it's not listed as shipped by 4pm on Monday I'll give the Customer Service line a call to see if they can tell me what the status is.

The Olsen Saga - Part II - The Box

So I didn't have time to post about it during the week, but I received my box from Purolator on Wednesday, so everything is on or even ahead of schedule. That's a good start.

I created my first ever photo album to do a little walkthrough of what you get from Microsoft and what you need to do to ship them your poor shorted-out box.

It's pretty simple, really. You get a box with some foam pads, a plastic bag, two pieces of tape, an instruction sheet and a pre-paid return label. All you need to do is take all the accessories off the box, slip it in the bag, put the foam pads on either end of your 360, and put it in the box you just received. You seal it up with tape that they actually include in 2 pre-cut strips, then put the pre-paid shipping label on top of the original label.

You can either take the box to Purolator, or you can arrange to have them pick it up - but if you arrange pick up it's at your expense. Fair enough I guess. I have a Purolator about ten blocks from my house, so it was trivial for me to drop it off on the way to work on Thursday morning.

According to Michelle on the customer service line, it should take 6-8 days for them to return it once they recieve it. My only uncertainty here is whether she meant I would have it back in 6-8 days or whether they would ship it in 6-8 days.

Worst case, 3 days to get there, Monday, April 16. Then 8 days to repair is Thursday the 26th. Three days to ship it back is May 1st.

Best case with 2 days shipping there, and if the 6 days includes return time, I could have it on my hands as early as Monday the 23rd.

Most probably it will come during the week of the 23rd to the 27th... and I will be in Paris. Dammit.

Anyway, no matter how I look at it, it's all good so far. I've got a tracking number so I can figure out exactly when they recieve it and exactly when they ship it back. I'll follow up with what will hopefully be a final post once I have it.

The Olsen Saga - Part I - The Call In

Alright, so since Olsen (11-17-2005, 03-12-2007) gave up the ghost almost three weeks ago now, I have simply been too busy to deal with the situation, but last night I finally got my shit together and called 1-800-4MY-XBOX to see what I needed to do to solve the problem.

Max - a polite but 'trying-too-hard-to-be-cool' voice-recognition help bot answered and tried to walk me through the steps to troubleshoot poor Olsen. I have the dreaded 'three-red-lights' issue, so I knew it was going to end badly anyway.

First step was to remove the harddrive. Walkthrough failure right there. I couldn't get the harddrive out. It's never been removed since I got it at launch, so maybe it was a little stiff or something, but I just couldn't pull the fucker out, so that was the end of Max (he could not understand this problem), and he passed me on to Jessie.

Jessie was also polite, but 'trying too hard to not sound too much like a voice-recognition help bot'. She must have apologized 300 times, to the point where it was starting to make me angry - so my one complaint up to this stage would be to have the operator apologize less. Jessie - are you actually sorry that I have a hardware failure? You shouldn't be. It's not your fault. It's not even really Microsoft's fault. It's first gen hardware and it lasted over a year of pretty intensive use. Anyway, Jessie walked me back through the troubleshooting steps. This time, when I got to the remove the harddrive part, I once again could not pull it out. Unlike Max, Jessie didn't experience an interupt (proof that either she was human, or MS is doing some really cutting edge shit with those help bots). Jessie put me on hold and went and asked someone what the hell she was supposed to do.

Anyway - while I was on hold I thought to myself - fuck it, if I'm gonna have to send it in anyway, who gives a shit if I bust the harddrive getting it out? So I grabbed a screwdriver and pried the thing out of there. It popped out no problem. Nothing broke, and now it clicks in and out easily. Jessie comes back on, and I tell her I got the harddrive out, so we move onto the next troubleshooting steps. No HDD failure, no power supply failure. Congratulations sir, your console is fried.

So - warranty time. Well, I had heard that MS extended the warranty on all their 360s by a year. That was good because, hey, 1 year warranty on purchase in November 05, add a year to that means everything is still covered, right? Wrong. Turns out that I only had a 3 month warranty on purchase, and further that MS didn't add a year they extended the existing warranty to a year. So I'm not covered. I knew I should have played Dead Rising more and fried it before my warrenty expired. Oh well.

So how much is it gonna be? $168.00 CDN says Jessie. They'll send me a box via Purolator which I'll receive in 3 business days, and then I'll ship it (shipping is paid) to the service center, and they will send it back within 6-8 days. Entire turnaround should be about 2 weeks. I tell Jessie I have to think about it.

What do I have to think about?

Well, first, the new X360 Elite is coming out at the end of April. It's 479.99. It's packed with second gen hardware and a bigger HDD, and apparently it's a lot quieter. Or I could consider putting that money toward a PS3. It seemed to me when I first read about the 360 warranty extension that it was really all about stopping people with hardware failures from buying a PS3 instead of repairing their 360. It seemed like a smart strategy, but if it has holes in it that still leave me out almost 200 bucks, well - that's 200 bucks off the price of a PS3, right?

So I thought about it overnight.

Here's the long and short of it. I don't need a PS3 right now because there aren't any games that I need a PS3 for, and because I don't want to have to start replacing the hundreds of DVDs I own with BluRays and because I don't have an HDTV. I might get a PS3 in the future, but it just doesn't make sense for me to be an early adopter. On Microsoft's side, I actually don't have a problem with my 'bad luck' on the warranty. 1st gen hardware often fails. I was luckier than many - I know people who have gone through THREE 360s in the last 16 months. If it runs me 170 bucks because of a bit of rough luck, that's the way it is. It's not about the money. It's about the service. I have heard a few nightmare stories of turn-arounds on 360 repairs. If that happens to me, it will be bad for Microsoft. They have my loyalty as a consumer. They have my willingness to give them my disposable income. They have earned my trust and respect through a solid working relationship, and my games have directly benefitted from their support. If this two weeks turns into two and a half months of hassle for no reason, well, there are other people out there who would like to have my money I'm sure.

When I said a year ago that 'the next-gen doesn't start until Sony says it does', I meant it. 'Next-gen' is not a technology war, or a price war, or even a war over better games. It's a war for mindshare. Technology, price and games - these are the big battles in the war. The strategies in these battles are determined. Sony's hardware innovation - for example - is pushing the envelope of what a console can do.

The other part of the war is the battle for service and it's not one big battle, it's thousands - millions - of little ones. It's a statistical battle. Each side spends millions on fuzzy concepts like training and staffing their tech support and customer service centers, improving the logistics in shipping and handling, pinpointing the ideal amount of time a caller has to talk to 'Max' before getting transferred to Jessie. Knowing how many times Jessie can apologize before it becomes annoying instead of appeasing. All of this for what might only be a 2-3 percent shift in mindshare. The question is will the 2-3 percent that comes out of this battle be the deciding factor in the war? Who knows? It seems like 2-3 percent is more than enough these days. We'll see how close the 'next-gen war' really gets in the next year I guess.

Anyway, this morning I called back and spoke with Michelle - who also apologized too many times. Maybe I should get 5 Achievement points everytime someone on the support line says 'I'm sorry'. I gave her my credit card number and took the $168.00 hit. I'll expect my box from Purolator to arrive in 3 business days - Thursday or Friday at the latest. I'll get 1 year warranty on the repair, plus 1 free month of XBox Live, and hopefully everything will be fine. We'll see what happens next.